Alternative Spellbooks

Something I love about wizards is their spell books. I think it says a lot of about the character when you see what form their spell book takes. It’s something that not a ton of attention is paid to. Most of the time we just hand wave it and move on. Some other games have rules for making them different, you might get bonuses for special materials, you might have to keep track of the number of pages used. There are spells to protect your book from harm or theft. It feels like it’s supposed to be part of the game but it’s kinda seen as a faux pa to actually target the wizard’s spell book, akin to removing the warrior’s arms. 

I think DCC handles this beautifully, its just something you have, call it what you want, don’t worry about keeping track of pages used or detailing how you protect it. You just have it. It’s as important as you make it. Because it’s so hand waved we get to talk about one of DCC’s greatest strengths, flavor. DCC thrives when you just flavor things yourself. The barbarian warlord and the shining knight are both the warrior class, just flavored and played differently. The Paladin is the cleric or the warrior, again, flavored and played differently.

So lets take this strength and apply it to the spell book. Your spell book makes a statement about you. It says a bit about how you view magic as a traveling wizard. It gives clues to your influences as a wizard. It plays into wizards being people who closely guard their secrets. It might speak to your peasant profession. One of my favorite examples of a non-book spell book comes from Mighty Deeds, a glowing geode that has broken pieces arranged into different patterns, allowing the voice in the geode to impart the knowledge into the mind of the caster. So i’d like to get the ball rolling and give a few examples of spell books that don’t fit the exact book format and hopefully you’ll see a fun flavorful way to make your wizard stand out a bit or guard their secrets in a new way. I’m gonna try to keep these mostly with adventurers in mind, the kind of thing a traveling wizard might use instead of a highly flammable collection of pages.

Quipu:

These are a record keeping device used primarily in the Inca empire in real life. They used a combination of the color of threads, the number and position of knots, and length of threads to convey information, they could have a few or a thousand cords. Your spells could be coded into this system just as easily. I like this as a spell book because it’s light weight, water proof, but still vulnerable to fire if worn openly. It says a lot about practicality and possibly paranoia that a character might use something that completely forgoes written script to put their spells to a physical medium. 

An Inca quipu, from the Larco Museum in Lima, Peru.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Metal Disks:

A large version of the picture etched with acid or carefully etched by hand tools. Maybe strung together by a chain or rope, keeping them in the correct order. Maybe they have their holes punched closer to the edge and they are kept on a ring like keys, your wizard’s keys to power… sorry for the bad joke. These would likely be very heavy compared to a normal book but they would sure be durable, just don’t drop them in deep water. These might say the wizard has lost past books to the elements or fire and decided no more. It might just say they have a background in metallurgy, certainly a fun idea for a blacksmith who took on the wizard class after the funnel.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bones:

I had a player once carrying an entire cleaned and polished human skeleton. They had the bones of their wizard’s master. “In death he continues to offer wisdom” he declared. The bones themselves, had carvings and etching on them that detailed the character’s spell book. Only when the skeleton is assembled in the anatomically correct configuration will the spells be able to be understood as the script flows between bones. Carefully applied copper wires and pins are inserted to hold it together for study. Not entirely practical but when collapsed down the bones take up less space than you might think. This character wasn’t a necromancer but someone who’s magic is influenced by death and unlife might use this. Maybe a gravedigger might use this as their spell book. It could speak of love, attachment, or refusing to let go in the form of the skeleton of a loved one. It could speak to hate or a grudge in the form of the bones of an enemy. It could be more tribal if maybe you used the bones of animals instead.

Bone Snuff Box, Proantic

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Shifting Puzzle:

I know that the cube from Hellraiser is probably the most iconic way I could depict it, and that absolutely rocks as a spell book, different configurations with the symbols on it show your spells, only you know how to solve the puzzle to show the correct configurations. The same could be done with any kind of shifting puzzle like the ones shown. Each space on the puzzle showing a different rune, symbol, or script and only in certain configurations does the script make sense. This could even be trapped, some configurations are specifically deadly if the spell is cast, maybe there is a blade hidden somewhere inside that ejects if the wrong configuration is put in. this is a light weight spell book that has a lot of things to say about a character. Their paranoia is certainly a factor, this thing is exceptionally hard to understand to anyone but themselves, if it’s trapped then that speaks to even more danger. Maybe they are particularly inventive and have “inverted” configurations that allow them to reverse the spells, such as growth for shrink. This character might have been a toy maker, or a clock maker before becoming an adventuring wizard, if thats the peasant background they have.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Star plates:

These are a collection of thin metal plates with holes punched in them that, when held up to the night sky in the right position, reveal a star constellation that isn’t recorded. By studying the constellations these plates reveal you gain your spells. The drawback to this is that it requires a night sky. You could say that arranging candles to match the disc could be done on a cloudy night, this might take longer to get the candles in the right positions. This would be a fun spell book option for someone who had an astrology peasant profession. It might say that your wizard sees the stars as the source of their magic, or perhaps the things between the stars, trapped in these secret constellations. 

Quilt or Afghan:

Done in patches, granny squares, or patterns, there are a lot of ways to say this is a character’s spell book. If it’s a quilt made of squares then each square might contain symbols that form the spell book. The same could be done with an afghan made of granny squares, looking back at the quipu, the color of the threads could matter, the chain spacers, the loops, the shells, all of it could play into how it’s done. Looking at the template for the granny square gives us some real interesting things to play with. Maybe using a ripple stitch you could use the pitch of the ripples, the colors of the threads, and the type of thread to mean different things. To make it even more complex you could say that you need to fold it into certain configurations in order to really gain your spells from it. This could say a lot about your character, maybe comfort and practicality are important? Maybe their peasant profession was a tailor or seamstress? Maybe your character’s magical instructor was their grandmother, who taught you magic at the fire side while showing you how to stitch the patterns that call to the fae she draws her magic from.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 I wanna finish this post off by saying I don’t think there is anything wrong with saying you just have a spell book or grimoire as the book says. What I do think is that we’re leaving a lot of opportunity for flavor on the table. DCC has this incredible strength of being a game that is so open to flavoring things, this is no different. Your peasant profession and jump into being a wizard has so much room for flavoring your character. These options don’t need to come with mechanical benefits and changes, they certainly could if that's what you want to do at your table.